When Soho-based post-production house UNIT Media moved into their new Great Marlborough Street facility, they found themselves in need of a dedicated rendering solution that would integrate with their new systems, as well as their existing range of VFX and 3D software applications, including NukeX, GenArts, After Effects and Maya.

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Why did they come to us?
Soho-based UNIT Media are a leading post-production house comprising three companies – The Cut, The Mix and The Finish – each dedicated to a particular aspect of post.

What did they need?
UNIT’s artists previously rendered all their projects locally on individual workstations, meaning valuable working hours were being spent waiting for renders to complete. They saw the move as the perfect time to increase their efficiency by switching over to a centralised render farm.

How did we help?
As speed and flexibility were the major factors for UNIT, Jigsaw24 recommended a dedicated farm consisting of powerful 12-core HP blade servers, managed by PipelineFX’s highly scalable Qube!. The servers would provide a three-fold increase in render speeds - although the real benefit was that their workstations were no longer tied up for rendering, so their artists could be much more productive. We also designed and installed a 120TB mirrored SAN and a 24-slot LTO-5 storage library, and provided licences for the Deadline render management interface.

What were the benefits?
The three-fold increase in speed of the new render farm means artists are no longer tied up by rendering times, and can be more productive. The collaborative storage system provides fast online and effective nearline storage, all reliably backed up and archived, while our Deadline and Qube! Software licensing allows UNIT to budget with greater efficiency and predictability.

"The real eye-opener was how good Jigsaw24’s technical sales staff and consultants were, and its engineers were nothing short of exceptional.”

UNIT Media

For more information on this customer case study, and to see more examples of our work, get in touch.

Who are UNIT Media?

Soho-based UNIT Media are a leading post-production house comprising three companies – The Cut, The Mix and The Finish – each dedicated to a particular aspect of post.